There may be some interesting issues to parse here re: the term modernism
and what we mean by it. I don't at the moment have much Sandburg in the
house, but my impression is that he's as "modernist" as Stevens or Eliot
(tho with far less irony in his long poems, at least) and has little to do
with the regionalists you mention--he was poetically a revolutionary by US
standards. The problem is that so much of his work seems sentimental to us
now. The closest European equivalent I can think of for the Sandburg of
the long poems is Peguy, whose work has similar problems.
It's diffiult to remember how big a deal Sandburg was, as the great
standard bearer for the new and the demotic, against Frost as the opposing
knight.
Mark
At 01:16 PM 12/22/2005, you wrote:
>I am not sure the origins of this piece - but I have seen other work with a
>modernist edge.
>Midwest/Chicago USA - early on - has all these interesting figures -
>Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Lee Masters, _ _ Robinson, among others who are
>admirably public/populist but aren't dummies. Kenneth Rexroth - tho he went
>west - a product of that world. Funny to think of Poetry Magazine having its
>origins there, too. I don't know if the history has ever been written
>fully, or well. Modernism took such a heavy leather strap to it all - T.S.
>Eliot rising above those sloppy mud filled St. Louis origins, etc. A
>Mandarin gentility versus those who 'stayed home.'
>Interesting to think of Bob Dylan - another mid-westerner - reaping great
>material from both the mid-sections and the south - where the 'genteels'
>refused to tread. A certain kind of courage for those who stay home and a
>benefit. Think of Twain, Faulkner, as well, I do.
>
>Stephen V
>
>
> > That's excellent. Sandburg's stock seems very low currently --
> > unfortunately his best known poems tend to be those which exemplify his
> > callowness -- so it's good to be reminded that he could do things like
> this.
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